HEARING TIPS

Why Wearing Your Hearing Aids Matters

So you don’t use your hearing aids regularly? Maybe you put them in when you go to a party or go to the theater, but in most cases, you leave them in the drawer. Is it actually necessary to wear them more often than that?

The concern is that when you don’t use your hearing aids regularly, you’re creating some troubling shortcomings for yourself over time. Your hearing may get significantly worse. Cognitive decline and social isolation could be the consequences. You could compromise your general health. This content will help you understand why you should be wearing your hearing aids.

Why Aren’t You Wearing Your Hearing Aid?

If your hearing aids are sitting unused in a nightstand drawer somewhere, you likely have an excuse. You may have decided to keep those reasons to yourself. Perhaps you evade the questions from your family when they ask why you don’t wear them.

Stilted dialogue aside, we know that’s not the full story, right? Normally, there’s an exact reason why you’re not using your hearing aids. Specific complaints are positive because they create an opportunity to find an equally specific remedy.

Here are some of the most common grievances;

“My Hearing Aids Aren’t Comfortable”

Discomfort is one of the most frequently reported grounds for people not wearing their hearing aids. Sometimes, the hearing aid won’t stop falling out of your ear. Or perhaps your over-the-ear model chafes in just the wrong spot, causing pain and tenderness.

It’s not supposed to be uncomfortable to wear hearing aids, so something is definitely wrong if they are creating any sort of discomfort. And frustration, pain and soreness are not things you would want from any piece of technology.

Possible solution: If your hearing aids are uncomfortable, consider setting up an additional or follow-up fitting session. A couple small tweaks could be all your hearing aid requires. The size and shape of your ear can even be the basis of a complete customization of some designs. You will be capable of leaving your hearing aid in longer if it fits properly and is comfortable.

My Hearing Aid Has Poor Sound Quality

Maybe you find the sound of your hearing aid to be too tinny or fuzzy so you don’t wear them very often. If that’s the case, it’s not surprising that you’ve decided to store your hearing aids in your nightstand drawer and save them for “special occasions”.”

Hearing aids are completing complex auditory functions all the time as they amplify some sounds while getting rid of others and that can cause a tinny or fuzzy sound. So the sound quality may seem hard to rely on if your settings aren’t properly tweaked.

Solution: There are two possible answers to this difficulty: calibration and maintenance. Your hearing aids may be damaged in some form or another and require repairing. But it’s also possible that they just need a simple calibration (normally this is something your hearing specialist can do for you).

With My Hearing Aid, Voices Seem Muffled

You need to hear voices clearly. That’s the entire reason you got hearing aids to begin with! You needed to make certain you didn’t miss any important interactions. So it may be a bit aggravating if all the voices you hear when your wearing you’re hearing aid sound muffled or hard to understand.

This usually happens when you first get your hearing aids because your brain and ears aren’t necessarily used to communicating very well anymore (it’s as if they had a falling out or something).

The Remedy: Keep practicing. Your brain will need to get used to hearing language again, so putting yourself in situations where you can hear people conversing regularly will be helpful. Try reading along to an audiobook or reading along with the closed captioning while you watch television. Merely having more conversations with the people around you is a very good way to get some practice, too.

Finding Answers

The point is regardless of what your reason for not using your hearing aids might, there’s a solution somewhere. And you need to use your hearing aid regularly in order to safeguard your cognitive health and the health of your hearing.

So if you’re not using your hearing aids? After pinpointing the problem, find a solution, so you can make your hearing aids, and all that they help you hear, part of your daily life. If you believe your hearing aids need adjustment, contact your hearing care specialist right away.